News Archive

Dog lovers may be interested in an article published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine: It highlights the discoveries scientists are making about diseases that various dog breeds are prone to -- and how those findings can benefit human health as well as that of canines.

Even sharks can get a tan. Sharks' skin turns from dark brown to black as the pigment melanin increases in direct response to radiation. In other fish, the exposure can lead to skin cancer. Sharks, however, just seem to tan. What's their secret? The answer could hold the key to preventing skin disease in humans.

A group of Kansas State University researchers has made valuable findings in the search for cancer's cure. While researching ways toimprove animal health, the scientists -- Raymond "Bob" Rowland, a virologist and professor of diagnostic medicine and pathobiology, and Deryl Troyer, professor of anatomy and physiology -- have made two important discoveries that can also improve human health. Not only have they found pigs withsevere combined immunodeficiency, or SCID, but they are also the first to discover the connection with human cancer, particularly melanomas and pancreatic cancers.

Blind mice had their vision restored with a device that helped diseased retinas send signals to the brain, according to a study that may lead to new prosthetic technology for millions of sight-impaired people.

Singing mice (scotinomys teguina) are not your average lab rats. Their fur is tawny brown instead of the common white albino strain; they hail from the tropical cloud forests in the mountains of Costa Rica; and, as their name hints, they use song to communicate.

A study published in the online journal Hepatology reports a potential new NADPH oxidase (NOX) inhibitor therapy for liver fibrosis, a scarring process associated with chronic liver disease that can lead to loss of liver function.

This week Autism Speaks announced that it initiated and is funding the development of new genetically modified rat models of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). My team at Baylor College of Medicine will help characterize these models in close partnership with the science staff at Autism Speaks and SAGE Labs. These models will provide autism researchers with important new tools for understanding the underlying biology of ASD and testing experimental medicines. Indeed, they will be among the first rat models made widely available to the field of autism research.

A molecule widely assailed as the chief culprit in Alzheimer’s disease unexpectedly reverses paralysis and inflammation in several distinct animal models of a different disorder — multiple sclerosis, Stanford University School of Medicine researchers have found.

Using mutant zebra fish, researchers studying the earliest formation of cartilage of the mouth believe they may have gotten a look at a mechanism involved in a genetic defect linked to Fraser syndrome deafness in humans.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved a phase 1 clinical trial to evaluate the safety of transplanting human Schwann cells to treat patients with paralysis. It is the first such trial in the world. In studies done in rats and mice, pigs and in primates, about 70 percent of function and movement was restored to the fully paralyzed animals.

Using animal models researchers at the University of Michigan Kellogg Eye Center have identified a compound that could interrupt the chain of events that cause damage to the retina in diabetic retinopathy.

An NIH video shows how the zebrafish, Danio rerio, is a valuable resource for scientists trying to understand the intricate process by which a fertilized egg develops into a fully formed individual, and the numerous diseases and conditions that can result when even a tiny part of the process goes wrong.

Mice appear to have a specialized system for detecting and at least initially processing instinctually important smells such as those that denote predators. The finding raises a question about whether their response to those smells is hardwired.

Researchers have designed a bioengineered jellyfish that can swim, an early step in scientists' quest for a way to make fresh tissue for patients with damaged hearts.

Whether a tree branch or a computer mouse is the target, reaching for objects is fundamental primate behaviour. To find out what goes on in the brain when we reach for things, biomedical engineers Daniel Moran and Thomas Pearce at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, trained two rhesus macaques to participate in a series of exercises. When the monkeys reached for items, electrodes measured the activity of neurons in their dorsal premotor cortex, a region of the brain that is involved in the perception of movement.